Carrick Lowland Gathering 2012

It is June now and that means time for the annual Carrick Lowland Gathering which takes place around the same weekend each year at the Victory Park in the middle of Girvan.  The Gathering as it is known has been a fixture of life in Girvan for a long time and it encompasses a lot of fun and festivity.  This year was no different on that score but it was an improvement on last year.

Throwing the Hammer at the Lowland Gathering!

A sunny Sunday lunchtime saw the Syme clan arrive and while I trotted about and had a few chats my good lady took some photos, the best two are in this posting.  The Gathering has a highland games event that includes hammer throwing, Highland Dancing and it has a Pipe Band championship too.  Alongside this are other smaller events and charities and a number of fairground rides and many stalls selling everything from traditional sweets and clothing to local wares like tartans and curling stones.  There are also workshops on how to dance and play the drums and pipes.

The Poet enjoying the Trampoline! (He is jumping, it just looks like he is tied up in the ropes)

Unlike last year it was dry and sunny which I think increased the turnout to more than two thousand all in and it meant more traders turned up too; there were no spare pitches left.  The pricing of everything was reasonable too and as always it was great to see the town busy and the children having fun.

Good Times!

GBS

Winter of ’79 Blog inspires USE ME Modern Warfare players

The Winter of ’79 blog run by my good mate Mark Hannam (the original creator and runner of Dropship Horizon blog) is a fasinating place to visit and makes you feel like you have stepped into an alternate reality.  His passion in creating a world where end of the 1970’s in Britain came out rather differenty is an inspiration and I greatly enjoyed trawling the posts and looking at the pictures (like the ‘mock’ Osprey campaign book cover above…brill!).  But why was I there?  I do not game modern period most of the time.

Well I went along because 15mm.co.uk had half a dozen emails and comments sent to it over the weekend referring to the Winter of 79′ blog along with purchases of our own UM004 USE ME Modern Warfare pocket sized rules system.  It seemed obvious enough to me that wargamers were looking at the blog and then buying USE ME rules for setting their games there in 20mm scale.

Well done Mark!  Great Blog and Great Imagination.  I hope your continued recovery from illness gets you back to full strength.

GBS